


Contingency

by gooseberry



Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Fatherhood, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Illegitimacy, Mildly Dubious Consent, Politically Motivated Childbirth, Politics
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-24
Updated: 2017-07-24
Packaged: 2018-12-06 06:16:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,020
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11594634
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gooseberry/pseuds/gooseberry
Summary: “The Marshal,” Ignis says in a careful tone, his eyes turned down to where he’s cleaning his glasses, “was correct when he said that we are in an undesirable position. We are in the midst of a war, our nation has been decimated, and there is only one surviving member of the royal family. Noct, the Empire knows that you are alive, and they will everything in their power to find and kill you.”“So this,” Noctis says, and Ignis says,“Lucis needs an heir, Noct. Take it as hedging our bets, if you will. Noct,” Ignis says, and when Noctis meets his eyes, Ignis’s eyes are crinkled and he is smiling awkwardly. “The child will be well-cared for, and in the event of the worst, it would maintain the royal line.”---The Marshal's contingency plans after the collapse of the Crown City include making an (illegitimate) heir. In short, it's Noctis being awkward and uncertain about the whole plan, then showing up ten years later, still awkward and uncertain. Also, a lot of hurt and little comfort, some parenthood feelings, a heavy side of Ignis-feels, and Noctis trying to cope with all the trauma and uncertainty of his life. (Hint: He doesn't, but he sure tries hard.)





	Contingency

> **contingency plan** , _noun_  
>  1\. a course of action to be followed if a preferred plan fails or an existing situation changes  
>  2\. a plan or procedure that will take effect if an emergency occurs; emergency plan

“She’s agreed to both the proposal and the terms,” Ignis says when he has reached Noctis. Noctis stands from the rock he has been sitting on, then feels a blush begin to burn on his face.

“Isn’t that a little fast?” he asks lamely, because it certainly feels too fast for him. He wants to undo the last few hours—or days. He wants to undo weeks of his life, try it again with what he knows now.

Ignis raises his eyebrows, then says, “Not particularly. She is well aware of the political climate, and she knows as well as any of us how fragile the situation is. Additionally,” Ignis says, his voice taking on an odd tone, something that sounds like it’s halfway between distracted and relieved, “she said she is about to enter her fertile period. Rather fortunate, considering our circumstances.”

“Oh,” Noctis tries to say. It comes out as a half-hearted noise, and Noctis clears his throat, then tries harder: “Should I—” He grimaces, then asks in an awkward, embarrassed rush, “Should I go talk to her?”

The look Ignis gives him makes Noctis’s face burn even hotter. He wants to cover his face with his hands, but he knows that will only make him feel even more humiliated. He settles for clenching his hands into fists and looking past Ignis’s shoulder, so that he won’t see the way Ignis is certainly rolling his eyes.

“You’ll be doing a great deal more with her,” Ignis says in a dry voice. “I imagine that speaking with her would be little to ask for in return.”

Noctis swallows—his throat is dry enough that it feels like he’s about to choke—then says, “Right. Okay. I’ll just— Should I go? Now?”

“Noctis.” 

When Noctis chances it and looks at Ignis’s face, Ignis is frowning at him, looking concerned and sympathetic. It’s the same kind of look Ignis used to give him when Noctis had nothing to say about his day at school, when Noctis had bumbled his way into another mishap, when Noctis had disappointed another person by being too him. Ignis reaches out, resting a hand on Noctis’s shoulder, and Noctis wants both to shake it off and to keep it on his shoulder forever. 

“She’s speaking with the Marshal at the moment. I imagine,” Ignis says, “that the Marshal will come speak with you when they are finished.” Ignis’s hand squeezes on Noctis's shoulder, slow and a little heavy, and Noctis has to swallow down words that are trying to squeeze out of his throat.

(He misses his father— He misses his dad—)

“Shall we sit?” Ignis suggests, nodding toward the rock Noctis had been sitting on. Ignis’s words are gentle and deferential enough that the command can be ignored for propriety’s sake, but his nod and the squeeze of his hand on Noctis’s shoulder are firm enough that Noctis feels steadied by the veiled order.

The rock is sun-warmed and dry, and Noctis scuffs his hands over the surface until his palms are dry and coated in the pale orange dust that seems to be everywhere in Hammerhead. When he sneaks a look at Ignis, Ignis is sitting primly on the the rock, one leg crossed over the other and his thumbs tapping at his phone. Noctis licks his lips, dry and chapped from the desert, and asks, “Do you think this is the right thing to do?”

Ignis sighs heavily, then slips his phone away, turning toward Noctis. Noctis frowns, then mirrors him, turning and resettling himself so that he’s sitting on the rock, facing Ignis. Ignis has crossed his arms, but his left pointer finger is tapping where it is resting on his right arm. Noctis frowns and prompts, “Iggy?”

Ignis sighs again, just as heavily as before, and he takes off his glasses as he begins to speak:

“The Marshal,” Ignis says in a careful tone, his eyes turned down to where he’s cleaning his glasses, “was correct when he said that we are in an undesirable position. We are in the midst of a war, our nation has been decimated, and there is only one surviving member of the royal family.

“Noct, the Empire knows that you are alive, and they will do everything in their power to find and kill you.” Ignis’s hands have fallen still; his glasses are hanging from his fingers, the arms hooked over his knuckles. When Ignis’s thumb touches one of the arms, the glasses swing. It is far easier to look at the glasses than to look at Ignis’s face.

“So this,” Noctis says, and Ignis says,

“Lucis needs an heir, Noct. Take it as hedging our bets, if you will. Noct,” Ignis says, and when Noctis meets his eyes, Ignis’s eyes are crinkled and he is smiling awkwardly. “The child will be well-cared for, and in the event of the worst, it would maintain the royal line.”

Noctis nods, then rubs his palms on his trousers. The orange dust smears across the weave of the fabric, and Noctis rubs his palms over his trousers again. “This is the best option, then.”

“Yes,” Ignis says, and then, in an affectedly bright voice as he looks over Noctis’s shoulder, “Ah, here comes the Marshal.”

x

At first, Noctis thinks the documents are impressive, especially for how quickly all this was put together. It’s a fair number of pages, and he skims through each as Marshal and Ignis discuss it beside him. There are a number of eventualities outlined: _Should the king and his legal spouse have issue_ and _Should the king and his legal spouse have no issue_ ; _Should the issue of the king and his legal spouse be deceased without legal issue_ and _Should the issue of the king and his legal spouse be in their minority at the decease of the king and his legal spouse_. There are provisions for a number of things: _Should the illegitimate issue of the king reach their majority_ and _Should the illegitimate issue of the king have legal issue_ and _Should the illegitimate issue of the king have illegitimate issue_ ; each aspect of a support system, from housing and schooling to occupation and marriage, is outlined in terms of issue, legitimate or illegitimate. 

“A bastard,” the Marshal says, “but a bastard with rights and privileges.”

Noctis signs where the Marshal directs him, then watches as Ignis and the Marshal sign their names beside his. Cindy has already signed the documents; her name sprawls out in a fat, looping cursive. On the other side of Cindy’s signature, Cid’s name has been signed in a cramped hand. 

Five names, then, will oversee the issue of balancing senior and cadet lines. Now the documents seem too limited; five names, Noctis thinks, can’t be very much when it comes to protecting a line of children.

“I’ll have copies made,” the Marshal tells them as he folds the documents into neat thirds. Noctis watches as he hands the first set of documents to Cid, then slips the second set into an interior pocket of his jacket. “Keep your original wherever you think safest, Cid.”

Cid grunts and says, “Cindy’ll see to it.”

When Cid catches Noctis’s eye, Noctis feels himself start to flush again, his palms growing sweaty. He doesn’t know how to read Cid’s face—he doesn’t know how much of the despair on Cid’s face is for Noctis’s father, and how much of it is for the Crown City, and how much of it is for these political machinations. 

“She’s a bright girl,” Cid says to Noctis, and Noctis nods. “Can’t no one get her to do anything she don’t wanna do.”

Noctis nods again, muttering his agreement. When Cid claps his arm, he can’t help the minute jerk he gives, or the way his shoulders curve inward. 

Maybe Cid’s just as uncertain as Noctis, just as submerged in confusing grief, because Cid’s mouth opens, then closes; opens again, and moves soundlessly for half a moment. Then Cid claps Noctis’s arm again and turns away.

When Ignis says his name and gives a pointed nod toward the stairs, Noctis turns and leaves the room.

x

“I was wonderin’ when you’d stop by,” Cindy says when Noctis enters her room.

She’s sitting on her bed, and when Noctis looks around, he realizes that this is the first time he’s been in a woman’s room—or at least, in the room of a woman who wasn’t his nursemaid or governess. He looks around again, at the dresser that’s cluttered with knickknacks and the rag rug that covers the center of the floor. There are bright curtains pulled back from the window, and sunlight is pouring through the opened space between the curtains. It’s a homey kind of room, he thinks; a place that looks comfortable and lived in, like it’s been warmed by years of human bodies living and breathing between its walls.

“Your room is nice,” he offers as he steps farther into the room. The rag rug is under his boots now, and he glances down at it again, then back toward the window with its curtains. “It’s bright.”

“Well thanks, Prince,” Cindy says in a voice that sounds teasing. She’s moving on the bed, shifting backwards so that she can sit crosslegged. Noctis looks at her, and at the bed, then looks away, toward the dresser with all its knickknacks.

“Cid,” he says, his voice sounding strange to him, “has the paperwork. It’s all been signed. He said he’s going to give it to you.”

“Alright. Gotta say, it’s quite the insurance policy.” Cindy must move on the bed, because Noctis can hear what he thinks is the squeal of a bedspring. He feels like his body is on fire. 

He’s growing aware of his body in a way he doesn’t think he ever has before. He feels big and clumsy, like someone with too many thumbs and with a tongue that’s too fat for his mouth. His cock’s already half hard, and Noctis turns a little more, facing the dresser, because he doesn’t really know how to just—how to just _do this_.

He must stand there, silent and unmoving, staring at the knickknacks, for too long, because Cindy sits up higher on the bed, making its springs squeak. Noctis looks over toward her, and she’s frowning at him, like he’s a puzzle to be solved, a clunk in the engine that she has to diagnose. Noctis opens his mouth, then closes it without saying anything, because he’s not sure what he should say. 

“You okay, Prince?” Cindy asks, and her frown deepens when Noctis hoarsely says, “Yeah.”

She stands as he watches her, moving from the bed toward him. She’s barefoot, and without her boots, she’s an inch or two shorter than him. Not that small, really, but the closer she gets, the more he feels like he’s giant—not a giant in power, but a giant in just bumbling and knocking his knees and elbows in all the wrong places. 

He doesn’t know what the Marshal was thinking. This is already a disaster.

He looks at Cindy’s face, then looks away. His eyes keep straying downwards, toward her breasts, like a tic he can’t help; it’s humiliating, and he drags his eyes away, feeling his face grow hotter and his trousers grow tighter. It feels like his lungs are being wrung empty of air, and he’s afraid that if he moves, he’ll knock all knickknacks from Cindy’s dresser. _Smash_ , and there goes Lucis; no one should have trusted him with a nation.

When Cindy touches him, cupping his cheek with her palm, he looks back at her, meeting her eyes. They’re green, he thinks—a greenish color, a little bit pale—and her eyelashes are darker than he would’ve thought. Mascara, maybe, he thinks a little hysterically, and when he huffs a short laugh, Cindy presses her other hand to his face, too, holding his face between her hands. 

“Hey there, Prince,” she says softly, and Noctis closes his eyes for a moment, like that will somehow help him gather the tattered pieces of his control. 

When he opens his eyes again, she’s still staring at him, and she looks vaguely triumphant, like she thinks she’s found the answer to the puzzle.

“Are you a virgin?” she asks, so bluntly that Noctis feels more than a little poleaxed. When he tries to answer, to say something about how things are different in the Crown City, how he can’t afford to make mistakes, she hushes him. Her hand, where it is now resting on his mouth, is warm and dry, and her face has that same concerned, sympathetic look that Ignis gives him on a near-daily basis.

“Don’t you fret,” she tells him. “This—it ain’t a problem.” When she smiles, even that looks concerned and sympathetic. “Just think ‘bout it like a weddin’ present—I’ll teach you some things for Lady Lunafreya.”

“What—isn’t that worse?” he stammers. Her hand is still resting on his mouth, and when his lips move against her palm, it feels like he’s been shocked by static, a jolt and then tingles rushing beneath his skin.

“It ain’t,” she say confidently, and she slowly pulls her hand away, her fingertips brushing over his lips before they leave his skin. Her smile quirks up higher on one side, and she leans forward, close enough that her breath is hot and humid on his skin and he can’t see her face at all. 

“I ain’t tryin’ to take her place,” Cindy’s voice says against Noctis’s skin, and her hand—the one that had been on his mouth, he thinks—is sliding down his front, her palm smoothing down past his shirt and his waist, until her hand is cupping his erection through his jeans. “I’m just makin’ sure everything’s in working order. Fine tuning things, makin' sure it’s a ride she’ll enjoy.”

And then, when she’s stepping back, her hand leaving his erection, she says, “Girls gotta help girls, y’know?”

Noctis is distantly aware that he’s breathing like he’s been running a marathon. He doesn't know what to say, and he’s not even sure he could actually make his tongue make the words right, even if he did. When Cindy throws herself back down on her bed, the springs squealing, Noctis sucks in a breath and holds it for a couple moments, long enough that when he breathes out again, he feels a little less like he might hyperventilate.

Cindy is stripping herself on her bed, pulling off her jacket and tossing it to the foot of her bed. She seems single-minded in the task, like reaching around to undo the clasp of her bra takes all of her attention. Noctis thinks he appreciates it, to have a moment without someone watching him, waiting for him. He breathes deeply again, then rubs the palms of his hands on the thighs of his trousers, where the orange dust from the rock has been ground into the weave.

“Alrighty,” Cindy says, and he glances over to see that she’s all but naked. Her shorts have gone the way of her jacket and bra, and all she has left on is a pair of blue and gray checked panties. He’s heard people say that sometimes clothing is more revealing than not, and he thinks it might be true—he thinks that the panties just make her seem more naked, like an exclamation point to this whole affair.

“Um,” Noctis says, but before he can embarrass himself further, Cindy points at him and says, 

“Your turn. Take ‘em all off, now.”

Noctis obediently bends over, tugging at the knots of his boots, loosening the laces enough that he can step on the heels and yank his feet out. He pulls off his socks, too, shoving each into the respective boot, then straightens up to undo his belt, slipping it loose of his trousers’ waist.

When he hesitates, his right thumb and forefinger pinching the pull of his trousers’ zipper, Cindy leans forward, cocking her head to the side and smiling broadly.

“Come on, Your Highness,” she tells him. “Take ‘em off.”

Noctis can feel the flush on his face deepening, and there’s a strange, twisty feeling in his stomach, nerves and excitement and the same embarrassment that’s been dogging him all day. His hands feel a little numb, and he pinches the pull of the zipper more fiercely between his fingers, until he can feel the metal digging into the flesh of his thumb and finger.

“We don’t have to.” When Cindy looks puzzled, he amends: “Get naked, I mean. Not—not all the way.”

“Why not?” Cindy asks, and when Noctis begins to answer, Cindy interrupts him. “This ain’t a deathless romance, Prince, but that don’t mean it has to be something awful, either. 

“I know,” she says, meeting his eyes and smiling in a way that Cid and the Marshal and even Ignis hadn’t, “that this is the best shot for Lucis. Maybe this ain’t something we hafta do, but it’s somethin’ we should.”

Then she says, “Besides, just ‘cause it’s work, don’t mean it can’t be fun.”

It’s not really an answer, but right now, Noctis isn’t really sure there really ever is an answer. He’s spent most of his life wondering why and how, and he's never found anything that’s made him feel like he actually understood. Maybe Cindy’s half-answer, like Ignis’s and the Marshal’s and even Cid’s, will just have to be enough. Shoulds and should nots; wills and will nots; cans and can-nots. 

It's all a cluster fuck, from the day he was born and his mother died, and maybe _This isn’t the worst option_ is the best anyone can do.

He drags down his trousers’ zipper, hissing at the pressure of the zipper on his cock, then tucks his thumbs in the waist of his trousers, shimmying his trousers down and off. When he’s kicked his trousers off from his ankles, he catches the hem of his shirt, then tugs it over his head before he can second-guess himself. When his head is clear of his shirt, he shakes his head, then shoves his hair back from his face. 

There’s a wolf whistle, something Noctis has only heard in movies and television shows. He looks at Cindy, feeling incredulous, and she’s grinning at him, looking brighter and happier than Noctis can remember anyone looking for a long time. The light from the window is spilling across her bed now, like liquid light over her bare legs and the rumpled quilt, and Noctis aches with something he can’t define.

“C’mon, Your Highness,” Cindy laughs, like there’s still something to be happy about, like there’s still things to be hopeful for. “Let’s give it the ol’ college try.”

And when she reaches out her hands for him, laughing at him or at herself or maybe just _with_ him, Noctis smiles and reaches back.

x

“Cindy has a kid,” Talcott offers when they are passing the pull-off for the mines. 

“Oh,” Noctis says, as noncommittal a sound as he can make, and stares out the window at the slabs of rock that rise just beyond the road. There is a glow coming from near the mine, probably a daemon of some kind, and Noctis watches the glow until disappears behind another outcropping of rocks.

“A boy.” Talcott’s fingers drum on the steering wheel, two sets of rolling beats. “He turned nine in the spring. February, I think? Or March?”

“Oh,” Noctis says again. There’s just enough light in the cab of the truck that when he looks over, he can see the curiosity on Talcott’s face.

It’s not what he expected, but he doesn’t know if that’s because nothing had felt real enough for there to be a kid, or if it’s because he’s lost ten years of his life. Noctis shifts in his seat, shoving his feet deeper into the footwell and leaning his head back against the headrest. His head is tilted to the side, just enough that he can watch the dark world slide by outside the window, like a spill of oil slipping past him. What lights he can see beyond the truck are all the flickering glow of burning things, daemons and the things that daemons devour. He wonders what kind of world this is to live in, where the darkness feels like a tangible thing curling around your shoulders and through your lungs.

“Can you tell me about him?” Noctis asks when Balouve Mine is far behind them and Hammerhead is not far ahead. He’s rolled his head to other side, so that he can watch both Talcott and the road, and he sees the glance Talcott gives him.

“We’re almost to Hammerhead, Your Majesty,” Talcott tells him. “You can see him yourself, if you’d like.”

Noctis doesn’t know if it’s a blessing or a curse. Maybe it’s both, or maybe there’s no real way to tell the difference. He settles for digging his fingers into Umbra’s thick ruff of fur, scratching Umbra’s neck until the dog has flopped over into his lap, its tongue lolling out and its eyes blinking sleepily. 

Hammerhead grows in the distance, the halo of artificial light like a scream in a quiet room. When they arrive, Noctis climbs out of the truck, and climbs back into something that feels like a strange mimicry of living.

The rolling door of the garage is closed and bolted, and Noctis doesn’t miss that of all the floodlights, the lion’s share are clustered around the garage. There are hunters scattered throughout the compound, men and women obviously on watch. Noctis isn’t sure if it’s the darkness or the silence or both, but the air here feels oppressive in a different way, like there is something coiled just beyond the fence and barbed wire and floodlights, waiting to unhinge its jaw and swallow Hammerhead whole.

“Noct,” Gladio says, and Prompto says, “Noct, it’s really you—”

It feels like he’s in the middle of a play with the wrong script. The set is wrong, and the costumes are wrong; all the actors are reading from Act Two, while he’s still thumbing through the beginning of Act One. 

He smiles, and he touches, and he bluffs. He watches their faces, Gladio’s and Prompto’s and Ignis’s, and he searches for the right things to say and to do. They say, _Ten years_ , and he thinks, _For me, it’s been ten minutes._

They talk about their world easily, thoughtlessly, and Noctis looks at the oil-slick darkness that is looming over everyone and everything, and he thinks, _Maybe I’m dreaming._

His friends smile at him, kind but distant, like mimicries of people he saw only a few minutes before, and Noctis clenches his hands into fists, digging his nails into his palms, wondering if he’ll wake up, or if he’ll just feel pain.

(It’s pain.)

“I’ll catch up,” Noctis says when Gladio has slung an arm over his shoulder, manhandling him toward the convenience store. Noctis ducks enough that he can slide out from under Gladio’s arm, and Gladio’s face is all puzzlement. Maybe, Noctis thinks, he’s just as much a stranger to them as they are to him. “I wanna ask Ignis something.”

“Right,” Prompto says, bright and fierce like he can burn away any of their awkwardness, and Noctis watches as Prompto and Gladio stride away. (He ran away from them a few hours ago; he turned, and he ran away, and he left them for the crystal. The memory is still fresh in his mind, like he can still hear the echoes, and he wonders if they’ve forgotten—he wonders what memories faded in their ten years, pushed out of their minds by ten years of darkness.)

“Noct?” Ignis asks. 

Noctis clears his throat, then turns in a slow circle, looking around Hammerhead again. It is the familiar things that confuse him the most—the same paintings on the side of the buildings, the same old gas pumps, even the same trucks parked along the far side of the garage. It is the familiar things that get stuck in his throat, these pieces of his reality emerging from the oil-spill of this alien world.

He clears his throat again, then says, “Talcott told me Cindy has a son.”

 _Ah_ , Ignis breathes, like the Ignis Noctis knows. The Ignis Noctic knew. The Ignis Noctis left hours before, and that he’ll never see again. Noctis breathes in, and out; counts to three, and breathes again.

“I haven’t seen it for myself,” Ignis finally says, “but Gladio has said that he looks a great deal like you.”

“Oh,” Noctis says quietly, because it doesn’t really seem real. None of this seems real—not Talcott or Ignis, or Prompto or Gladio; not what’s been said about Cindy and her son, or anyone else.

Noctis looks up at the sky, and the lack of stars only makes it all feel more alien. He rubs at his jaw, then pushes his hair back out of his face. A beard, and longer hair; an ache in the small of his back he doesn’t remember.

When Ignis makes a quiet, questioning sound beside him, Noctis says, “It kinda feels like I’m dreaming. I mean,” he says, watching Ignis’s face, searching for something to lead him the right way, “it doesn’t feel like I’ve woken up yet.”

Ignis’s smile is wry when he says, “I think it would be better classified as a nightmare, but I assure you, it is all quite real.”

When Noctis doesn’t respond, Ignis nods, then says, “Perhaps you should speak with Cindy.”

x

Cindy lays a small stack of photographs on the table, and when Noctis glances up at her face, she’s smiling at him, looking tired and worn and as concerned and sympathetic as she had after his father had died. Noctis tries to clear his throat, then says, “Cindy—”

“Prompto took them,” she interrupts, pushing the pictures over the surface of the table, spinning them so that they are facing Noctis. Noctis can feel his hands shaking; he clenches them into fists in his lap, where they are hidden by the shadow of the table, then lifts his right hand so he can edge the top photo out from beneath Cindy’s fingers.

It’s a photograph of the shop, a truck looming in the background, the red tool chest squeezing into the side of the frame. Cindy is in the photo, smiling brightly at whomever is on the other side of the camera—Prompto, she said Prompto took the photographs—and she is crouched behind a little boy, her chin resting on the boy’s shoulder and her arms wrapped around the boy’s waist.

The boy’s eyes are green, maybe—it’s hard to tell in the photograph, but when Noctis lifts the photo closer to his face, looking closer, he thinks that the boy’s eyes must be green. He’s paler than Cindy, his skin an almost sickly color, and his hair is dark and shorn close to the head. Noctis isn’t practiced at picking out children’s features, but he thinks he can see pieces of himself in the boy: the eyebrows, the length of his forehead, maybe the shape of his chin.

(He thinks that this might be close to what their child would’ve looked like, if Luna hadn’t— He thinks, _Her eyes were blue. Their eyes would have been—_ )

“Does he look like me?” Noctis asks as he takes the second photo from Cindy, looking at it closely. It’s only the boy in this one, and he looks younger in this photo than in the first; he’s sitting on the couch in the garage, cross-legged and solemn-faced, holding a box in his lap. Noctis feels something twist in his gut, a visceral sort of understanding, because he can remember sitting on couches himself, waiting quietly and patiently, because that had been what was expected of him. 

“He does,” Cindy says, and Noctis can’t stop himself from touching a fingertip to the boy’s face in the photograph. He blinks twice, then squeezes his eyes shut, counting slowly in his head.

He has only reached four when Cindy touches him, laying her fingers over his hand. When Noctis opens his eyes, he sees that she’s holding out another photograph to him, and he takes it.

One after another, he looks at the photographs: Prompto taking a selfie with the boy, the boy’s arms wrapped around Prompto’s neck; the boy hanging over Gladio’s shoulders, red-faced and open-mouthed like he is laughing or screaming; the boy sitting on the red toolbox; the boy sleeping in Cindy’s lap; the boy sitting in between Cid and Ignis; the boy; the boy; the boy; the _boy_.

Noctis looks at the photographs, searching through each one, though he doesn’t know what he’s looking for, and he doesn’t know what answer he finds. When he has seen the last photograph, he lays it on the table, then rests his head in his hands, murmuring, “Okay.”

They are quiet for a long time. Cindy has taken back the photographs, and Noctis can hear her shuffling the photographs, like she is putting them back into order. When she’s finished, she taps the stack of photos on the table, like she is tapping a deck of cards, then lays them down again. Noctis can see the edge of the photos from beneath the cover of his hands, and he digs his thumbs into the corners of his eyes, on either side of the bridge of his nose.

“I named him Luneth,” Cindy says, and Noctis says again, “Okay.”

He hears her rise from her seat and step around the table. Her hands are gentle when they rest on his shoulders, lying there lightly for a few short moments before she moves away again. Noctis stares at the surface of the table until it blurs in his eyes, and listens to the sound of Cindy moving about the room. 

“He’s sleeping right now,” she says.

“He’ll wake up in a little while,” she says.

“I’ll bring him down,” she says.

“So you can meet him,” she says.

“Do you want to meet him?” she asks.

“Yes.” There’s something rising up in him, that gut-twisting feeling that had grown with each photograph, and Noctis says it again, fiercer and far more desperate, “ _Yes_. Please. Cindy, _please_ —”

Cindy looks frightened, concerned and sympathetic and unsure and frightened, and Noctis wonders how he looks to her. He wonders if he looks as terrified and desperate as he feels, if he looks as lost as he feels. He’s hungry for something, and he’s not sure what—his father, or Luna, or this boy, or maybe the mother he never knew. Maybe he’s just hungry for the chance to rest, to sleep without having to dream. Maybe he’s hungry for nothingness.

x

He’s not sure how he finds his way to the others. 

He feels clumsy and disjointed, like a wooden doll on strings. He trails his hand over the wall for a few steps, but the wall feels distant through his skin, like he’s numb all over. He pulls his hand away and lets it hang at his side, limp and useless.

“Hey,” Prompto says when he looks up and sees Noctis. “Are you okay? Noct?”

Noctis thinks about it as he breathes: in and out; he has a son who’s never seen the sun; in and out; it feels like it’s only been weeks since Luna and his dad died; in and out; he feels like it’s been decades since he slept.

 _Not really_ , he thinks about saying; or, _I don’t know_. 

“It’s been ten years,” is what he settles on, and with Prompto’s urging, he sinks down into a chair.

Gladio’s sprawled out on a cot, an arm tucked under his head and a book lying open and face-down on his chest. Ignis is sitting on the side of another cot, his chin tucked close to his chest and a mug held in his hand. Prompto is moving back to sit on the floor between the two cots, already fiddling with his phone.

It looks like every night they spent after they left the Crown City, like nothing has changed, except things have. Things must have. They’re older now, all of them, even Noctis, and the world is a dying thing. Noctis is a dying thing. They grew and changed when Noctis was gone, and when Noctis dies, they’ll keep growing and changing and—

“Noct,” Gladio says, sounding frustrated, and when Noctis blinks, Gladio is looming over him. Gladio’s hands, Noctis realizes, are wrapped around Noctis’s, and when they squeeze, Noctis squeezes his hands back. He feels so _numb_ —

“Is he back with us?” Ignis asks, and when Noctis looks up, he can see Ignis standing just behind Gladio. Ignis’s mug is gone, and Noctis wonders where it’s gone. He feels so numb, his body and his brain, and he is so tired. 

“Think so,” Gladio says, and he says Noctis’s name again as he squeezes Noctis’s hands. Noctis obediently squeezes back and, when Gladio looks at Noctis, as frustrated and impatient as he’s ever been, Noctis says,

“Yeah. I’m back. Sorry.”

“Hey, it’s cool.” Prompto’s voice is right beside Noctis, and when Noctis turns, it feels like his head is ten sizes too big for his body, fat and heavy with blood. “It’s a big—I mean, it’s a big deal, right? Just, uh, maybe you should lie down for a minute? ‘Cause you look like you’re gonna faint.”

Noctis's not quite sure how it happens. He says something that he thinks sounds agreeable, and he can feel Prompto and Gladio trying to hold him up, or maybe lie him down. Then he is lying on the floor, his cheek resting against the cold cement, his hip digging into it. It’s like a dam has burst: he hears himself babbling, words he can barely understand and that he has no chance to control.

“I’m sorry,” he hears himself groan, like he’s vomiting out whatever it is that’s been festering inside himself for all his life. “I’m sorry, I didn’t—I didn’t know. I’m sorry. Fuck. I didn’t think—”

He says it again and again, all his apologies for everything he’s never even known. He knows it won’t change anything, that it won’t make anything right; he knows that he’s never been able to make everything right. 

He’s already so tired, and each word he can’t stop is like another stone on his shoulders and chest. He turns his face, scraping his forehead against the cold floor, and says, “I’m so tired. I’m so tired. I wish I’d never been born. I wish I was—”

But it’s not a wish. He’s a chess piece, plucked up from one board and set in another, a gambit to win a game. He’s one more sacrificial king in a long line of them, and his son—

“Fuck,” he says, and he thinks he may be whispering now. He can’t tell, doesn’t know if he’s screaming or whispering or if he’s not even speaking aloud at all. He doesn’t even know if he’s awake, or if he’s dreaming still. He moans, wanting to tear out his hair and his throat and his heart; maybe even his eyes, to make up for yet another tragedy done for his sake, another sacrifice he’d never asked for. “Holy fuck— 

“I have a son,” he cries, “and he’s never seen the sun.”

x

When he wakes up, he apologizes, feeling stiff and awkward. He’s exhausted, but it’s an empty kind of exhaustion, like he purged himself of everything that had been festering inside of him. 

“No apologies needed.” Ignis’s voice is cool, maybe a little distant, but his actions are kind: he’s sitting beside Noctis and he’s gripping Noctis’s arm, holding it tightly for a long moment before he lets go and moves back.

“You’re exhausted,” Ignis says, “and you were even more so last night. Considering your exhaustion and the shock, your reactions are more than understandable.”

Ignis is sitting to Noctis’s left; Noctis can only see the scar that cuts through Ignis’s right eyebrow and a hint of the white scarring on Ignis’s right eye. Noctis blinks, then looks away.

“Does he know what he is?” Noctis asks, and Ignis’s answer is prompt:

“He does.” Ignis adjusts his glasses, and Noctis catches another hint of Ignis’s dead right eye. “The Marshal and I have both made efforts in his education.”

“Of course.” Noctis shifts on the cot, then pulls up his right leg, tucking it in close to his chest so he can rest his chin on it. “I’d expect no less. Thank you, Ignis.”

When he glances to his left, he can see Ignis smile in profile. Noctis breathes deeply, then turns his face, looking instead at his own toes curling around the edge of the cot.

“Tell me about him?” he asks, and Ignis says,

“Of course, Your Majesty.”

x

He meets his son.

He’s not sure if it’s morning or night. ( _Some people still try,_ Prompto had said, _but it’s hard to keep a schedule without the sun. Most everyone just lives on their own schedule._ ) The garage’s overhead lights are harsh, and their high-pitched, electrical buzz is ringing in Noctis’s ears. Noctis rubs his left temple, where a headache has been building, and catches sight of Gladio’s frown from across the room.

There are a handful of people spread out through the room: Gladio and Prompto are standing near the far wall; Talcott is sitting at the table, though he jerks to his feet when Noctis enters the room; Cindy is standing behind the boy, her hands resting on his shoulders; Ignis is standing behind Noctis, close enough that Noctis can hear him breathe. There’s an affected nonchalance about the arrangement, as though each person just wandered into the room by happenstance.

Noctis wonders whether they are frightened of him or for him.

“Hello,” Noctis says when he looks at his son, and his son replies, “Hello.”

Here, standing an arm’s length from his son, Noctis can see the resemblance. He remembers being this small, remembers standing straight and still as one caretaker or another rested their hands on his shoulders, telling him, _Stand straight. You are a prince, and you must never forget that._

He wonders what it is like, to be a prince of a kingdom you have never seen. (He wonders what it is like, to be born into a world that has no sun.) He wonders if Luneth feels as restrained as Noctis does, if he feels the same heavy burden as Noctis. He wonders if it was fair, to force Luneth to be born in this world. 

“Luneth,” Cindy says; she is bent down low enough that her cheek is pressed against Luneth's, and her eyes are looking up at Noctis. “This is the king.”

Under the harsh garage lights, Luneth’s eyes are a pale green, and his eyebrows looks as dark as Noctis’s. Luneth is frowning—Noctis can read it in the narrowing of Luneth’s eyes and the furrowing of his brows. 

“Luneth,” Cindy murmurs again, quietly enough that Noctis doubts Gladio and Prompto, or even Talcott, can hear her. Luneth’s frown deepens, but he takes a step forward, out of Cindy’s hands, and makes a short, jerky bow.

“Your Majesty,” Luneth says, and Noctis feels his breath catch in his throat.

Ignis moves beside him, and the rustle of his clothing knocks something loose inside Noctis. He takes a step forward, then bows his head. It’s a shallow thing, more of a quick bob; it’s what his father had done whenever they had met during a formal occasion. 

“Prince Luneth,” Noctis says. The words feel foreign; his chest feels tight. 

The garage lights feel hot on the back of Noctis’s neck, like he is slowly burning beneath them. His son’s skin is sickly pale, the color of dead things, and this, this is what his son is heir to: a garage with floodlights, an abandoned city, a world without a sun. His son is little, and fragile; his son, he thinks, would burn beneath the sun. (He wonders if his father had felt this way; if his father had felt guilt and fear like lead in his bones, if his father had looked at him and had asked, _How will he?_ ) His son is a wisp of smoke from a fire that collapsed to ashes years ago.

Noctis kneels there, an arm’s length from his son. On his knees, his son is taller than him, but only just; Noctis looks up at him, at his pale green eyes, and wonders if he can love him, or if he even should. (And he wonders, _How will I—_ ) His son’s a stranger to him, as much of a stranger as everyone else in the garage. His son is ten years of a world without a sun; his son is ten years of a world that moved on without him, one slow, shuddering heartbeat at a time. His son grew without him, and he’ll continue to grow without him. His son is another chess piece, plucked from nothing and placed at the edge of the board, waiting to be played by the events around him.

He wants to love his son. He wants to love his son as desperately and as frantically as he wants to love his father and Luna. 

All he wants is to save someone.

He smiles at Luneth, and he can feel concern and sympathy well up in him like a spring breaking free of the earth. He holds out his hand, and he asks his son, “Your Highness, will you let me take your hand?”


End file.
